Political Wisdom: Let the Rand Paul Show Begin

Just three days after Rand Paul won Kentucky’s Republican Senate nomination, it’s already clear that the political newcomer and tea party favorite will be a source of fascination for political observers the rest of the campaign season.

Today’s outpouring comes as a result of Paul’s comments, in a couple of media interviews, that he has misgivings about portions of the 1964 Civil Rights that ban discrimination by private businesses. The Atlantic offers two differing views, one opposing and the other defending Paul, sort of.

What’s most troubling about this interview is not that Paul opposes a portion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it’s that it’s clear Paul hasn’t thought much about his position. Lacking a rigorous intellectual framework for his opposition, Paul is wobbly on defense. So what you see, in the main, is Paul trying to change the subject–at one point, I think he actually asks (rhetorically), “Am I a bad person?”

But Paul never settles down and to make the argument. Rachel Maddow repeatedly raises lunch counters, and it would have really pleased me if Paul had just made the case for private sector discrimination. Frankly, I can see the outlines of the argument and am not totally unsympathetic to it…. But what about red-lining? Does Paul know anything about blockbusting? Does he think banks should be able to have a policy of not lending to black businesses? Does he think real-estate agents should be able to discriminate? Does he think private homeowner groups should be able to band together and keep out blacks? Jews? Gays? Latinos?

I don’t agree with Paul on the Civil Rights Act because I believe that the legacy of slavery and segregation made a drastic and historic redress morally vital for this country’s coherence, integrity and unity. But was the Act in many respects an infringement of freedom? Of course it was.
To bar private business owners from discriminating in employment would have been an unthinkable power for the federal government for much of American history. Now it’s accepted as inevitable for almost everyone who can claim to be treated unjustly for an aspect of their identity irrelevant to a job. What I believe was a necessary act to redress a uniquely American historic evil became a baseline for every minority group with a claim to grievance.
To my mind, this is settled law and should remain that way. But it is not without cost to liberty (as I argued in Virtually Normal). And a real libertarian will feel some qualms about it.

When politics as usual is out of favor, expect some politics as unusual. That’s the newcomer Rand Paul, a stilted public performer with an unassailably anti-establishmentarian pedigree. Yet he’s not on a suicide mission. He distanced himself from his dad’s radical rejection of the American foreign-policy consensus, even if he opposed the Iraq War and has qualms about Afghanistan. He endorsed federal drug laws, a bow to the federal behemoth. He even disavowed the label “libertarian.”.. He’s been anointed the candidate of the tea party by the press, and with some justice. Paul captures the tea party’s understandably apocalyptic worries about the debt, its constitutionalist principles, its emphasis on the politics of sincerity, and its rejection of Bushian compassionate conservatism.

Welcome to the Rand Paul Project, where Lesson No. 1 is that unconventional candidates are prone to do … unconventional things. It’s hard to tell them that, no, they shouldn’t go on a liberal cable news show at a moment of maximum attention to their every word and, no, they shouldn’t indulge the temptation to defend their extreme-sounding views on the sort of racial discrimination that once had African-Americans drinking out of “colored” water fountains. …
In some ways, it’s just a freshman media mistake: Accept every interview that’s offered, even if it means walking into the lion’s den wrapped in red meat. But with what should be a safe Republican seat on the line, the first days of Paul’s general election campaign have party pros unnerved. ..The candidate eased fears some by issuing a damage-control statement stating his opposition to discrimination and doing an interview with conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham in which he seemed to acknowledge the necessity of the Civil Rights Act. But in Washington and Kentucky, GOP officials want Paul to know he’s not running for tea party movement president — and to shape his campaign accordingly.

Comments (5 of 5)

this guy gives the father pause i bet, i cant believe he actually believes what comes out of his mouth, its just red meat for the country folk.

1:14 pm May 21, 2010

KP12 wrote :

They're both bad. Moral degeneracy, whether under socialists or religious activists, is the path to tyranny. Those that think they're doing a favor for God and those that think they're doing a favor to the state. Both bad. I'll take the Gospel anyday. Freedom from religious and marxists slave masters.

1:03 pm May 21, 2010

It's only a matter of degree wrote :

KP12 wrote: "The left have become self-righteous hypocrits(marxian moralists) "

Yes, but much less than the right wing conservatives hypocrits ( christian moralists).

12:50 pm May 21, 2010

KP12 wrote :

Here we go again. The left still keeps alive the art of victimology. Yak, yak. Superficial confusion. The left doesn't care about the individuals behind "race". Only generic race to help shape policiy by placing guilt on easily duped Americans. The left have become self-righteous hypocrits(marxian moralists) seeking to enslave all, regardless of race or gender.

About Capital Journal

Capital Journal is WSJ.com’s unique site for analysis of the political and policy maneuvering in Washington in the era of Barack Obama. It features the Capital Journal columns and occasional other postings by executive Washington editor Gerald F. Seib, and will house Political Wisdom, the Journal’s daily aggregation of the smartest political analysis from around the Internet. Also look for regular columns by Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and occasional contributions from others.